You probably know the story of Clever Hans, the horse owned by a math teacher named von Osten who decided to teach his horse to do math in the same way that he did his pupils. After extensive training, Clever Hans appeared able to solve relatively advanced mathematical problems, including multiplication and long division. Clever Hans showcased his abilities around Europe, although von Osten never charged for an exhibition. His owner and trainer sincerely believed that his horse understood what he was being asked, and wanted the world to see it for themselves.
Scientists were so interested that a panel was formed, led by psychologist Carl Stumpf, which verified that no tricks were visibly involved, but passed the issue onto psychologist Oskar Pfungst. After an extensive series of tests, Pfungst found that Clever Hans was unconsciously being cued by his trainer. Hans could only answer questions if in visual range of a human who knew the answer. In other words, Pfungst found that Clever Hans was clever indeed, but in a different way than thought by his owner. The horse used subtle cues from humans (head tilt, eyebrow raise) to know when the correct number was coming, and thus when to stop pawing. (Hans communicated by pawing the ground; his answer to 2 + 2 was to paw the ground 4 times.)
I’m reprising this story, familiar to most of you, because of a great talk given by Dan Estep and Suzanne Hetts of Animal Behavior Associates at the Interdisciplinary Forum on Applied Animal Behavior in Arizona last weekend. The owner of a dog named Sheba had asked for a “scientific investigation” into his dog’s intelligence, and a local TV station asked Dan and Suzanne to look into it.
Sheba’s owner, Bob, was convinced that his dog was brilliant. Not smart, but brilliant. She knew just about everything about anything, and what’s more, she’d acquired this information all on her own; the owner swore he’d never taught her a thing except how to communicate. Sheba could answer yes/no questions with one paw or two, and multiple choice questions by pawing 1 to 4 times. Is it cold in the Arctic? Yup, answered Sheba, slapping her paw once onto her owner’s palm. Did the Green Bay Packer’s win the Super Bowl this year? Of course not, everyone knows that: Here’s two paw slaps for a resounding no.
Dan played the video tape of Sheba’s performance and we all watched, fascinated, while Sheba accurately answered question after question when asked by her owner. And then, predictably, it all fell apart when Sheba was asked to answer questions when her owner didn’t know the answer or she couldn’t see him.
But, of course, Sheba WAS brilliant, just brilliant at readings subtle cues that her owner wasn’t aware of. Imagine us at the meeting – a gloriously eclectic group made up of Certified Applied Animal Behaviorists, Board Certified Veterinary Behaviorists and some trainers brilliant in their own right – all straining forward, watching the video over and over, trying to figure out what cues Sheba was using to figure out the correct answer. We never did, and neither did Dan or Suzanne (although the best guess is a combination of tactile cues from his hand and visual cues from his face) because Bob refused them any chance to work with her some more. What a shame that instead of acknowledging Sheba’s intelligence, albeit not in the way he imagined, he sent them packing, insisting that they were wrong, that Sheba really did know that San Diego was south of San Fransisco. He also eventually admitted to them that Sheba was actually Albert Einstein reincarnated. Oh my.
There’s more to this than an amusing story. Dan used this case to remind us that the real Clever Hans taught us a lot more than “be aware that you might be cuing an animal in subtle ways.” Pfungst discovered not just that Clever Hans was astoundingly good at reading visual cues, but that it was almost impossible not to produce them. Once he figured out the cues that Hans was reading, he found that when he or others consciously tried their hardest to avoid creating them, they were unable to do so. In other words, even if you tried your hardest to stay absolutely still in every way, it was impossible NOT to cue Clever Hans if you knew the answer and he could see you. Wow. Think about that in relation to you and your own dog. (By the way, Pfungst’s book, Clever Hans, is available for free. I highly recommend it, it’s fascinating.)
As Sheba reminds us, it’s not just horses that read us like a book. Note a study by Lisa Lit that found that dog/handler scent detection teams reported finding scents 260 times (18 teams, each run 6 times) in areas in which there were NO scents planted. But the handlers had been told that scents had been planted, and that one room even had a red symbol marking its location. Mark Hines, who works with scent detection dogs all over the world (he works for Kong, encouraging the use of positive reinforcement in the training of military, detection and protection dogs; I call him The King of Kong) was in attendance at the meetings and said this was a common problem in detection dogs. Really good handlers and trainers are well aware of the problem, but it’s more extensive than you might think.
Those of you who studied psychology might be remembering the study by Rosenthal & Fode in 1963 in which experimenters were told that some rats were “Maze Bright” and others “Maze Dull.” That wasn’t true, the rats were actually all the same. And of course, when the rats ran the maze, the ones believed to be “bright” really did run the maze faster. (It turns out the experimenters handled and interacted with the “bright” ones more often.)
Now… think about your own dog, his or her behavior and your own expectations. How many times do you think you are unconsciously cuing your dog? Eeeeps, the mind boggles. How many tiny pupil dilations, head bobs or changes in scent do we make every day that communicate with our dog? How many times do our beliefs about our dogs and our expectations of their behavior influence it?
I’d love to hear examples from you of when you think this might be relevant in your life. I’ll tell you when I think I most have to be aware of it: knowing Willie’s history with unfamiliar dogs, I have to be extra careful not to set him up to be tense during greetings. Perhaps this is why I’ve seen clients (and myself) have the best luck with classically counter conditioning both the handler and the dog to have a different response. Replacing an action on our part (rather than trying to just stand still like Pfungst did) with another behavior like signaling “Watch” or doing BAT or “Look at Me” changes our behavior as much as our dog’s.
MEANWHILE, back on the farm: I wrote most of this on Sunday afternoon on a plane from Denver to Madison on my way home from IFAAB, but now it’s Monday morning and it’s lovely to be home. Especially since I leave again on Friday for the Tucson Book Festival. But as much as I love home, IFAAB was wonderful this year: interesting, interactive, inspiring and supportive, sort of an academic slumber party. I’ll write more about some of the other interesting talks I heard there as the weeks go on.
Here’s a little contrast for you: First, the colors in Arizona on Sunday:
And here’s the colors here in Wisconsin:
Terry Golson says
Years ago, in riding school in England, I was assigned a chestnut mare for a jumping class. The teacher said something to me, and I thought I heard “she’s our best jumper.” We were doing grids without stirrups and reins. That mare jumped beautifully. The instructor kept raising the fences, higher than I’d ever gone. At one break she said, “this is really something. That mare always ducks out and hates jumping.” Of course, after she said that, that’s exactly what the mare did. So, there is truth to the expression “put your heart before the horse.”
Kat says
I know I unconsciously cue both Ranger and Finna. In the well socialized, calm, and confident Ranger’s case it’s wonderful. I have a noise I make that I describe as his cue to read my mind. Since he can read me like a billboard he has no trouble figuring out what I want and complying. He makes me look like a brilliant trainer because he does exactly what I want without me even asking. Example, we were having his photo at a local rescue’s fundraiser. He needed to jump up on a settee and pose looking at the camera. I tongue clicked to get his attention, flicked my eyes to the settee, to the settee seat, and to the camera. He jumped up and sat facing the camera to the great amazement of those standing around who’d heard only a tongue click. Mostly, I’m not aware of what the cues are he’s picking up, I just have the picture of the result in my mind.
With Finna the unconscious cues are a problem. Even after four months she still has issues with my husband at times and I know we have a negative feedback loop in play as a result but we haven’t been able to break out of it. Her biggest issue with him now comes at bedtime. We’ll be in the living room at the other side of the house yet when he comes out of the bathroom to go upstairs to bed she charges down the hall and up the stairs behind him barking and growling ferociously. This is a fairly recent problem that I think began when she was startled awake by the sound of the bathroom door and reacted badly. As much as I try to remain calm and relaxed I catch myself tensing up when I know the bathroom door is about to open. Our latest strategy is taking her outside for a brief game of fetch. She’s a fetch fanatic so taking her out and throwing the ball both removes her from the trigger and helps condition her that Dad getting ready to leave the bathroom is a predictor of something she loves. I’m hopeful that this change will make a diffderence.
Ravana says
I know I cue my guy. When I first got him he was very phobic and I had to be very careful about doing anything that would indicate to him that something he feared was coming. Sometimes it was easy to figure out the cue, sometimes not. But the cuing goes both ways, for instance I can tell the minute he has spotted something disgusting in the gutter a 1/2 block away. Spotting the actual thing can be much more difficult, but I have a heads up!
Alexandra says
I currently have laryngitis and can barely speak above a whisper. I am getting quite an education on how much my dogs understand without my having to say a word. About the only thing I can’t communicate well right now is a recall at distance, primarily because I can’t make noise to get their attention. However, if I can get them to look. I can do my agility recall to heel body position, and the dogs come right to me. Pretty amusing; I think the words are just for us sometimes.
Tori says
I love the “maze bright” story! One of my instructors used to tell us that we needed to believe we had the best dog in the world and he was worth the time and effort of training. Of course, mine always have been…
Love the beautiful Wisconsin picture too.
jackied says
Unconscious cues – that really resonates with me just now.
I had an experience at the weekend where I was walking my reactive dog and met two pairs of dogs in quick succession. The first pair I got tense about when I saw them coming, because my reactive dog dislikes the owner which makes him much worse – and both my dogs kicked off, even the ‘nice’ one. The second pair of dogs are reactive themselves and so theoretically should be much harder to deal with, but I like the owner and we both managed our dogs calmly and nobody kicked off.
And then when you say that BAT may partly have its effect because it changes the owners behaviour -that’s really something to chew on. It could explain why it can be so transformative (is that a word?!) for some dogs.
Don says
I once noticed that when Kasey meets someone new and then backs away from them (as he only occasionally will do when hemeets someone), then that person will turn out to be someone that I’ll have issues with. Now I wonder whether Kasey was just sensing my issues with them even before I was aware of them.
Bree Plude says
Wow! I guess you really do learn something new every day. I mean I knew elephants and dolphins were smart, but who know other animals had similiar potential. Even though the animals are just reading the cues from humans, it’s amazing that human beings don’t have identical abilities. Or maybe it’s that we use to have it but lost it… Lots to think about here, great post!
Marcia in NorCal says
I think I have to have all my students read this! I’ve been coaching people in treibball for several months, and every new set of students asks the same thing: What commands should I use to direct my dog from one side of the field to the other? What I’ve learned from watching these very different dogs is this: as long as you are consistent, it really doesn’t matter — you could say “cupcake” and “frosting” and the dog will learn what you mean — and in fact, if you don’t say a word, the dog will still learn. I am increasingly convinced that, as someone else suggested here, the words really are for us (funny how that “chimps vs. canine” thing keeps cropping up!).
Christine says
Its so hard not to cue your dog when you are used to a certain response. My dog is mostly reactive on leash, so I try to hum a funny song sometimes when we come up to other dogs so my mind isn’t focused on “he’s going to lunge and snarl… be prepared”.
I still suck at it, its a work in progress! haha
Amy W. says
This has nothing to do with the topic at hand, but I thought you might enjoy this.
Larry C. says
Of course dogs read body language. It’s their native language. Humans think in words, but dogs don’t. Instead of words, they learn to respond to minute cues in their environment: scents, sounds, and subtle body cues from other dogs and people. I have one dog that is so sensitive I think of her as wearing her nerves on the outside of her skin. When she is uncertain, she focuses on me and takes cues from me about how to behave.
FJM says
I often think I can see my dogs using exaggerated body language to speak to me in GREAT BIG letters, because they have discovered I am very slow on the uptake compared to other dogs. They certainly respond better to tiny gestures than to words – perhaps because I converse with them, and it is easier for them to read my body language than my burbling! But it works very well for us, and has convinced many people that the dogs understand every word I say …
Martina says
Yeah, the words are just for us, but I think, they make the right (or, of course, sometimes very wrong) pictures in out minds, which lead then to the unconcious cues. So it really does matter, in which words you think about your dog. Or what words to use as cues.
Rich Brown says
I knew my dogs were receptive, but I never really thought that they could be cued by something as minuscule as a raised eyebrow. My spaniel gets really nervous when entering new situations, so I guess I’m always anticipating him trying to hide and am probably making it worse in the long run, even though I always try to stay motivational for him. Definitely going to be relentlessly positive now – I might even try Christine’s idea of humming a song!
trisha says
To Amy W: You are absolutely the best. Thank you for that fantastic laugh. Best laugh I’ve had in a long, long time. I needed a laugh today, my favorite ewe died unexpectedly last night, about to face the barn this morning. If you haven’t watched the video Amy sent…. DO. It’s hysterical.
Laura Anne Welch says
There is one time when unconscious cues must have come into play. I walked a gambler’s course in agility, worrying over a, for us, difficult gamble, which called for the dog to go past the gamble line and past the A Frame to a jump on the other side. I practiced and practiced the handling for this, only to realize that I was practicing for the wrong class. We were entered in Open and this was the Elite class! When our class did come up, I went over the gamble, which was to have the dog cross the line to the A Frame, But, I didn’t practice like before, since I knew Cassie could do it. When we ran the course, I signaled her go out to do the A Frame. Cassie went around the A Frame and took the jump! I must have signaled that, since she never had done it before. We count that run as our first, albeit unofficial, Elite Gamblers cue!
By the way, only one of the Elite dogs got that gamble.
Liz says
Ooh such fun to think about all of the cues incidentally given to dogs.
The ones I
em says
Trisha, I am so sorry to hear about your ewe. It is always so hard to lose a beloved animal.
To respond to the post, Otis is another ‘mind-reader’ dog- as long as I have a clear image in my head of what I’d like him to do, he can do it without needing to learn a specific cue, but if I am distracted or unclear in my mind about what I actually want, he will consistently flub verbal cues that I could have sworn that he knew. I suspect that he actually learns very few spoken cues at all, and is almost always reacting to my gestures and body language or, at least, when the subconscious cues and the conscious cues conflict, he chooses to act on the subconscious ones- my very own canine lie detector 🙂
Sandy is good about reacting to untrained, unspoken cues when I have her attention, but she is much more scattered and less attuned to my emotional state and less likely than Otis to do so on her own initiative. This can be a good thing, though. My husband and I have had to learn to be very emotionally disciplined around Otis-it’s not enough to watch what we say and deliberately do, we have to be careful about what thoughts we allow to pass through our minds.
For instance- Otis is typically perfectly quiet in the car. He lies down, looks out the window and never barks- a very desirable pattern of behavior. But, if I am driving up a residential street and a person is eschewing the sidewalk in order to jog, walk, or mill around in the middle of the road, and I allow so much as a flicker of annoyance to cross my mind, Otis, not able to see my face, will bark. If I go so far as to think, “Oh, get out of the road!” he does a full-on impression of the hound of the Baskervilles from the back of the truck. I might think that he was reacting to the person themselves, except that he’ll pass police officers, construction workers, and DPW guys standing in the road (with whom I am not annoyed) without so much as a peep. If I am studiously careful to avoid eye contact with the offender and think happy thoughts, I can usually forestall his traffic cop routine with errant pedestrians, but not always.
Otis’ sensitivity to unconscious cues generally works out for us, because my husband and I tend to be calm, friendly, happy people, but we have learned to be very vigilant about our own reactions when we are out with him, because he absolutely will act on our feelings. The scariest incident we’ve ever had with Otis was an example of this.
We were over at my mother’s house for a cook-out and get-together. My mother’s in-laws, an elderly couple whom Otis had met a few times but did not know well, were there, along with half a dozen or so other family members. For two hours or so everything went well, Otis was comfortable and polite with everyone and everyone was comfortable with him. After dinner, when my husband and I were on the other side of the room, seemingly without provocation, Otis suddenly stiffened, then barked loudly and threateningly at my mother’s eighty-year-old mother-in-law. He was standing between her and my mother, making very hard eye contact, seeming on the verge of a lunge.
We whisked him out of the room immediately, shocked and horrified that he had acted so uncharacteristically. He would not calm down, but continued to stare, tensing every time she moved and seeming on the cusp of charging back across the room to confront her again, so we took him outside to the car, apologized profusely, and felt a sense of sickening worry that he would behave in this way.
It wasn’t until we got home and my mother called me that I found out what happened. While she was in the kitchen, my mother’s well meaning but sometimes socially inept mother-in-law (who has a history of doing this sort of thing) said something colossally hurtful and insensitive to my mother. I mean really, jaw-droppingly bad. My mother was deeply hurt and furious, but, not wanting to confront her elderly mother-in-law, had simply stiffened up and taken a step away. Otis stepped between them, and when the mother-in-law moved to follow my mother in order to continue the conversation, that’s when the incident took place.
In some ways, this was a tremendous relief- it had not been an unprovoked reaction, as it seemed from across the room, but an effort to protect a beloved member of his family. But the danger is still very real. My mother was in no physical danger, she had simply had her feelings hurt, but all she had to do was think, “get away from me”, and Otis was prepared to physically confront an elderly woman that he had just spent two very comfortable hours with. The fact that her next thought, upon witnessing his reaction, was “good dog” doubtlessly did not help.
My mother trusts Otis, and appreciates his loyalty and protective impulses, (she’s very much the same herself) but doesn’t necessarily register that he is a very powerful, potentially dangerous animal who doesn’t understand the potential consequences of his actions. His ‘mind reading’ tendencies make him a wonderful companion-the dog of my heart- but they present a serious challenge and risk as well- he’s not a dog for the faint-hearted.
Terrie says
What amazes me is that the same dog who has learned that a particular facial expression means “Don’t even think about jumping up on the bed” is the same dog who has been known to walk face first into a door. I mean, glass doors, I get. My bedroom door, not so much.
Dena (Izzee's Mom) says
My first Springer, Izzee, could be guided into either a straight or crooked “front” in obedience, just by a flick of my eyes. I had to be careful not to let myself glance to the side while she was coming in to me. (That video was a real hoot!)
FJM says
This is so interesting – I think I may abandon vocal cues altogether, beyond using names to get attention. After all, I consider it rather rude when my dogs bark at me to get me to do what they want, and irritating when they whine – perhaps if I was more mindful of what they were telling me with their body language it would not be necessary.
I do agree about the dangers of giants squishing toes – and worse. Sophy the papillon quickly developed a habit of touching my leg with her nose when she comes up behind me, so that I know she is there. It wasn’t something I taught her, just a trick of her own. It works very well – except for the occasion she tried it on a stranger – bare legged in shorts – who was completely oblivious to her presence. I have never seen anyone jump so high from a standing start!
jackied says
I have noticed that my new(er) dog Lucy (a Springer) picks up life skills from body language (eg following a pointing finger to go in the kitchen) extremely quickly but is slower to learn tricks. She loves everybody. My other dog, a SpingerxCollie who was feral and most certainly does not love all humans LOL, is the other way round, particularly when we first had him.
We got them both as rescues at around 12 months old; neither appeared to have had any ‘training’ at all (forget LLW – neither even knew how to pull on a lead LOL, they just wandered around in circles tripping me up). I speculate that the difference is because Lucy learned to ‘read’ humans from an early age.
LaDonna King says
I recently proved to myself and others that my dogs are very attuned to my nonverbal cues. I have often wondered if they could read my mind. I decided to test the theory at a recent pet therapy visit. I had made large cards with the different commands that I give for the many tricks they perform. I explained to my group that I was first going to show them the card so they could see what I wanted the dog to do, but I would not be speaking. I just thought about the command and sure enough he did each and everyone. The old folks are convinced he can either read my mind or read the cue cards. Ha! I then only used verbals trying to remain perfectly still with as little facial movement as I was able. Sit was the only command that he got verbally and that is because that is his default command. We had not practiced any of this ahead of time, so it was a real eye opener to me too. I do not use hand commands much, so it is mostly coming from facial or a move of a shoulder or other body parts. Very interesting indeed.
Cathy says
I have a dog who hates toenail trimming. If I am looking at him and just subtly shift my gaze to his feet, he runs to hide!
Kat says
@Em. Thank you for giving me something to think about re: Finna. Your report on Otis’ mind reading abilities and his desire to, shall we say, fix things when his people aren’t happy makes me wonder how much she’s picking up from me and the children. I know she’s an emotional barometer. I laugh that I know which side of the bed the 12 year old got up on before he even gets to the top of the stairs. If Finna comes over and jumps into my lap I know he got up on the wrong side of the bed and is going to be grumpy. No 50 lb lap puppy and I know he’s going to be cheerful.
My husband has always been unpredictable although not in a bad way it’s just that he moves very quietly and doesn’t have a regular pattern of what he does. For example, often I’ll think he’s gone upstairs only to find he’s actually in the basement. It’s been a source of minor irritation for almost a quarter of a century. With the advent of Finna and her lack of socialization and need to have things predictable and routines his unpredictability is more of a problem and I confess some days it goes beyond the minor low level irritation to an actual frustration. I’ll be paying attention to see if Finna’s worst behavior happens before or after I start being frustrated. In other words whether I’m cueing her to react badly by getting frustrated or if I’m getting frustrated because she’s reacting badly. It wouldn’t surprise me to find that it’s the former.
I can imagine Finna reacting like Otis to someone that hurt my feelings. I can’t imagine Ranger doing so. Ranger would be at my side in an instant lending me emotional support and offering calming signals. I wonder how much of that is just personality and how much is the result of early socialization. It’s very interesting to wonder.
Patrice says
I think I am probably doing something in the Obedience ring that cues my dog to get up out of the Long Down early. He usually stays down in matches and in training, but in actual trials he gets up.
Partly it’s the different environment — so I train at matches as often as possible to recreate the situation as much as I can.
But I think also I might be doing something that makes him get up early, come over to me, and sit quietly at my side. I can see that he is somewhat nervous, I am definately nervous. Perhaps I am communicating that, and he decides we’re better off together.
But I don’t know what it is I am doing, and people I’ve asked don’t see anything in particular, either.
JJ says
Trisha: I am so sorry to hear about your ewe. While this video won’t make you laugh, I think it is uplifting and heart-warming. It sure made me smile.
http://www.dogwork.com/ddsff4/
On the topic of accidental cues: My dog will spin once left or right to verbal cues “left” and “right”. However, there was a time when I’m pretty sure that my dog was reading my eyes.
It is hard for me to get direction right, especially when Duke is facing me. So, I would think hard about which direction he should go before giving the cue. That usually involved looking in the direction Duke should turn. I had originally thought that Duke knew the verbal cues. But then I noticed that Duke was looking intently at my eyes. And when I tried cuing Duke with my eyes closed, his success rate went down significantly.
I’m pretty sure that Duke no longer needs my eyes, but who knows? Maybe I’m cuing him some other way without knowing it. Maybe my shoulders twitch?
Deanna in OR says
Every so often, in agility class, my agility trainer has us run silently through a course. It always amazes me how much better my dogs do without me blabbering away. I just can’t help myself from using verbal cues most of the time, however.
An agility friend has a BC who lost his hearing around 3 years of age. It’s always amazing to watch them as she silently cues him through Elite NADAC courses with body language, often from a distance.
And there is something, I don’t know what, that cues my Collie to the difference between an agility trial and ANY other situation that requires a Stay. She will Sit-stay, solid as can be, until we get to the line in an agility trial. There, the Start-Line Stay is “broken”. Oh well, she is almost 9 and we have fun anyway.
Kathy says
Re: JJ’s video: too bad dogs can’t form real friendships, huh? 🙂
Kerry M. says
I’m sorry to heard about the ewe.
I’m afraid I don’t have an almost metaphysical connection with my dogs. Just the standard stuff. This is most obvious in how they perceive other people – they are totally working on their own standards and there are no subtle cues at work here. I’ve had dogs who whole body wiggle trying to encourage homeless people to come closer to pet them. I now have a dog who is willing to take down a 6 year old if the child gets caught staring too long. I definitely prefer the dog who doesn’t discriminate on domicile status or hygiene standards but I hope to someday have a dog who doesn’t care if a 6 year old stares and lets me walk down a street without accosting random strangers. We can all dream, right?
I do however catch myself giving unintended cues all the time. I was pretty proud of myself for eliminating the non-verbal cue for couch – this is permission for the dog to jump up after he asks by sitting in front of it. I used to have to pat the couch and he wouldn’t jump up on my verbal cue alone. He has been really reluctant to go on a non verbal because he hates getting off the couch and would rather not jump up at all then jump up and be told to get off. A few months ago, I thought I finally eliminated the non-verbal so he was reliable and understood the verbal cue alone. I had been pretty pleased with myself, but then last week as I invited him up, I felt a little head nod. Oops. I guess I just changed my non-verbal. Well, it does keep my hands free still which is what I really cared about, so I guess that’s OK.
Loved, loved, loved the sheepherding video. I usually smile at these sorts of videos but that one made me laugh out loud the whole way through.
Jeanine says
What does this mean for my youngest dog, generally acknowledged (at least by me) to be the coolest girl on the planet, and empress of the known universe? She’s turned out smart as a whip, a bit of a hussy, accustomed to getting her own way with most other dogs and people– and my heart dog.
JJ says
Kathy: Too funny! Good catch!!
On the topic of this post: I wanted to say that I am pretty grateful for this post. The part that helps me tremendously is this: “Pfungst discovered not just that Clever Hans was astoundingly good at reading visual cues, but that it was almost impossible not to produce them.”
It really takes the pressure off. Yes, I still think there is value in trying to produce clear cues for dogs. But it also means that we don’t have to pretend that we are robots and feel bad about it if we can’t do 100% pure, single feature, intentional cues.
Pressure? Well, cueing is one of the hardest parts for me for training my dog. So, I attended some cueing sessions at the recent ClickerExpo in Portland. The instructor talked about the importance of knowing what your body is doing, making sure you are not giving inadvertent cues, etc etc.
As I said, I do agree that it is a kindness to the dog to do the recommendations on making clear cues as much as possible. But I also love/am taking a sigh of relief, that maybe I don’t have to feel too badly about it if my cues aren’t 100%. Maybe I can just take advantage of my dog being able to read me better than I read myself.
CrazyAgilityDog says
I’m learning more about ME everyday. My own dog is a great barometer of my state-of-mind/mood which I am well aware of. Now that I have volunteered to walk shelter dogs I am learning that my expectations of them are paramount. I’ve learned to not read the previous volunteer walkers’ notes because they might pre-c0ndition me to expect a certain behaviour from the dog. Instead I take the dog for a walk and write up my own experience notes at the end of the session. Sometimes I am amazed at how different my experience was from that of the previous dogwalker. The “problem” dog is never as difficult as would have been predicted from the last walker’s notes.
Perhaps the best thing we can give dogs is no prediction/expectation of their “reaction” to certain situations. In my (humble) opinion, the best thing we can give them is our expectation that they will handle whatever shows up with balance and perhaps a sense of humour. One of the boys I have been walking has proven to be delightful. He is intelligent, playful and willing to please. In his exhuberance, his size and natural physical power is the only thing of which he is completely unaware and I realized that it is my responsibility to help this big playful pup develop some restraint so that he will not inadvertently harm his playmates. He is learning restraint from my loud “yelps” when he overdoes it. There is not a mean bone in his body and he is clearly distressed when I yelp and stop playing with him. I am learning how to encourage his restraint without crushing his delight in having a human playmate. He needs a job – and I am working to find a good one for him.
Hank Simon says
Italian Translation – Google Translate converts the Italian Web site that you listed to a very readable English.
I used the Clever Hans for two tricks:
I taught my Lab mix to Sit/Down/Count by reading flashcards. Great entertainment.
He also Sit/Down/Bang based on a directional glance from me.
Recently, I see that research suggests that baboons can recognize when they see a word that looks like correctly spelled English, even though they’ve never seen it before, suggesting some basic syntax knowledge. If I’d seen that research 10 years ago, I might have been more serious about teaching my dog to read.
Jeff Emtman says
Great Article. I actually just finished a big project on the story of Clever Hans in the form of a podcast with actors and discussion of modern clever horses. Maybe you’d like it!
http://radio.jeffemtman.com/hbm006-clever-hans/